Fifteen of the Best at Glasgow Film Festival 2016
Sandwich between the Coens’ Hail, Caesar! and Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa is 12 days of cinematic delights. Here are fifthteen films not to miss...
Glasgow Film Festival returns this month with one of its biggest programmes yet. Sadly for those cinephiles slow off the draw, some of the hottest tickets, including the opening and closing galas, have now sold out. As was the case last year, GFF's one-off site-specific screenings have proved particularly popular. We're kicking ourselves that we didn’t snatch up tickets for the bonkers-sounding Con Air event. It's not that we're unanimously united as huge fans of that deeply stupid Nic Cage actioner; in fact, some of us would go as far as saying you'd need to point a gun at our heads to make us watch it again. But that's kind of what GFF are planning to do: audience members will be put in prison jump-suites, shackled in chains and taken on a prison bus to a secret location to watch the movie.
We're also lamenting missing out on The Man Who Fell to Earth at The Planetarium – it's the perfect setting for Nicolas Roeg’s wonderful film and sure to be an even more moving experience now that its beguiling star has passed away. Suffice to say, if there are still tickets left for any of the other 'total cinema' events you'd like to go to you should snap them up now.
But there's no point crowing about what could have been when there's so much great cinema on offer. Here are 15 films you’d be mad to miss...
Arabian Nights
Miguel Gomes’ last film was the spellbinding Tabu, and word is he works similar magic with this sly, three-part remix of Scheherezade’s classic fairy tales. To avoid DVT, GFF are mercifully screening the trilogy across three days.
Vol 1, 22&23 Feb; Vol 2, 24&25 Feb; Vol 3, 25&26 Feb
The Clan
The jewel of GFF’s Roads to the South strand, this Argentinian thriller centres on a seemingly average suburban family who just happen to kidnap the country’s rich and elite, chain them up in their upstairs bathroom, ransom them off, then murder them. If that sounds a bit far-fetched, you’ll be pleased to know this is based on a true story.
The Club
This latest film from Pablo Larraín (Tony Manero, No) sounds like a sinister twist on Father Ted, centring on a household of disgraced priests who’ve been banished to a perennially overcast coastal village. This darkly comic study in guilt and punishment might be the Chilean filmmaker's finest work yet.
Évolution
This strange and mysterious film from Lucile Hadzihalilovic recalls early David Cronenberg in the way it blends sci-fi and body horror to hair-raising effect. Not to be missed, especially as Hadzihalilovic will be around for a Q&A after the screening.
Goodnight Mommy
So, your loving mum returns home following cosmetic surgery with her face swaddled in bandages – just how sure can you be that this woman really is your mother? Twin boys find themselves in that exact situation in this devilish psychological horror from Austria.
Green Room
Truth be told, we weren’t as bowled over by Blue Ruin as many were, but director Jeremy Saulnier’s punks v neo-Nazis followup has us hooked thank solely to one casting wrinkle: Sir Patrick Stewart, reportedly the nicest man in show business, plays a brutal white supremacist. You have to see that, right? Make it so.
I Am Belfast
This bittersweet paean to his hometown is Mark Cousins’ best essay film yet. It’s also his most beautiful, with painterly visuals courtesy of master cinematographer Christopher Doyle.
James White
All you really need to know about this dreamlike character study centred on a mother and son is that it's from Borderline Films, the filmmaking collective behind such movies as Martha Marcy May Marlene, Simon Killer and Afterschool. Everything they produce is unmissable.
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More on GFF 2016:
Folk Like Us: Aidan Moffat on Where You're Meant to Be
Glasgow Film Festival 2016 programme announced
Journey to the Shore
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is the master of dread and unease, even when he’s making intricate family dramas (see Tokyo Sonata). Journey to the Shore, the story of a piano teacher who’s reunited with her missing husband when he returns as a ghost, looks like it combines his more mature style with his J-horror roots.
Julien Duvivier retrospective
Like Marcel Carné, his fellow practitioner of 'poetic realism', Julien Duvivier got a bit of a kicking from the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd of Godard, Truffaut et al. Like in the case of Carné, the soon-to-be New Wave directors were wrong. Duvivier’s films are ripe for rediscovery, so don’t miss GFF’s screenings of three of his rarely-seen pictures.
Mustang
Five orphaned sisters find themselves under lock and key as their strict guardians try to marry them off one by one. This Turkish festival hit has been described as 'a prison movie with a spiky sense of humor,' and we hear the performances from the young cast are as ebullient as the subject matter is grave. It's one of ten films eligible for the annual GFF Audience Award.
The Pearl Button
Nostalgia for the Light, the previous film from Chilean documentarian Patricio Guzmán, drew a link between astronomy and the ongoing search for those murdered during Pinochet’s reign. In this equally mesmerising film he investigates the significance of water on his nation's tragic history.
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation
Remember when JJ Abrams remade A New Hope last year? Well, 11-year-olds Eric Zala, Chris Strompolos and Jayson Lamb pulled off the same trick 25 year earlier with their shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and they did so armed only with a Betamax camera and their weekly pocket money. There may be better films screening at GFF (including Steven Spielberg’s original), but you’ll find few made with such heart and passion.
Speed Sisters
This lively doc follows five Palestinian women as they vie to be crowned the fastest broad on the West Bank. Amber Fares' film is that rare beast, a documentary set in the Middle East that’s both political and playful.
Wild at Heart
David Lynch’s road movie fairytale follows two lovers (Nic Cage and Laura Dern) on the lam in the Deep South, encountering oddballs and sleaze bags as they go from one kitsch motel to another. It would be worth seeing this dazzeling cinematic odyssey on the big screen anyway, but the fact it's getting GFF’s now legendary 'total cinema' treatment makes this event unmissible. Taking place at St Luke’s Chapel, the night kicks off with a tribute to the music in the film with Elvis karaoke. Question is: can you do an impression of Nic Cage doing an Elvis impression?
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